Images of innovation in discourses of free and open source software

Abstract

In this study, we examine the relationship between innovation and free/open source software (FOSS) based on the views of contributors to FOSS projects, using Q methodology as a method of discourse analysis to make visible the positions held by FOSS contributors and identify the discourses encountered in the FOSS community. In specific, our analysis reveals four discourses: four ways of expressing oneself used by FOSS contributors, which, aside from certain commonalities, postulate fundamentally different conceptions of innovation. Whereas the dispersion of FOSS contributors' subjectivity across four different discourses is indicative of the diversity and heterogeneity of the FOSS community, their commonalities, however, demarcate a common ground that all discourses share: points of agreement include the negative effect of patents on innovation, the predominant role of end users over manufacturers in the innovation process and the embrace of FOSS licenses as a key enabler of innovation. In the conclusion, we outline some implications for innovation management and policy. Contents Introduction MethodologyResults: Unfolding the discourses Implications for innovation policy and management IntroductionResearch interest in software developed and distributed freely over the Internet by voluntary associations of hackers [1] known as free and open source software (FOSS) projects has been steadily increasing during the last ten years. Readers of First Monday (FM) are familiar with the topic. In fact, few journals have devoted as much attention to FOSS as FM, as can be seen from the publication of Eric Raymond's (1998) 'The cathedral and the bazaar,' which popularised the study of FOSS, and the October 2005 Special issue on open source (http://firstmonday.org/issue/view/212), to name but two milestones in research on the topic. Since, a plethora of works published in FM have highlighted the uniqueness of FOSS. Characteristically, Schweik and English (2007) remarked the striking divergence of the mode of governance of FOSS from that typically encountered in natural resource commons on account of the informal and non-hierarchical governance of the former, while Jordan (2009) emphasised the 'novel understanding of property' encapsulated in the development of FOSS, which effectively inverts 'property as exclusion to property as distribution'. The ever-increasing stream of contributions to the evolving FOSS literature attests to the fact that the scholarly attention devoted to FOSS has since only been increasing, often in directions that extent beyond the realm of software production. Indicatively, Scacchi (2010) concluded that FOSS projects 'are in many ways socio-technical experiments to prototype alternative visions of what innovative systems might be in the near future' on the basis of a mode of governance that effects a 'transformation in the marketplace of ideas and [in] the means of production from centralized authority with corporate enterprises, towards a more decentralized commons-based peer production'. On the same w...

Classifying Organizational Adoption of Open Source Software: A Proposal

“…While exact usage figures are uncertain, some studies have put usage levels as high as 85% [3] and in some specialist fields, close to 100% [4]. Open Source Software (OSS) usage had previously been the preserve of programmers and software experts [5,6], but this 'second wave' [7] of OSS adoption by businesses and non-technical users has led to greater press and academic attention [8]. However, much of this attention has focused on OSS development methods and processes [9], with studies of adoption being under-represented [10][11][12][13].…”